April 22, 2007
Recycling While BrownIssues
Given what happened last week in Virginia, the events described in this post might seem trivial, but I feel quite strongly that they are not. What’s at issue is a fundamental question of civil rights — the right to live one’s life without being harrassed, investigated, or needlessly spied on.
The Indian-American poet Kazim Ali teaches at Shippensburg University, which is a little west of Harrisburg, PA (and not too far from where I myself teach).
On his website, he recently described how his “suspicious” behavior led to his entire campus being shut down. The behavior in question? Recycling. He was doing nothing other than dropping off a stack of printouts of poems to be recycled when someone from the campus ROTC called the police:
A young man from ROTC was watching me as I got into my car and drove away. I thought he was looking at my car which has black flower decals and sometimes inspires strange looks. I later discovered that I, in my dark skin, am sometimes not even a person to the people who look at me. Instead, in spite of my peacefulness, my committed opposition to all aggression and war, I am a threat by my very existence, a threat just living in the world as a Muslim body.
Upon my departure, he called the local police department and told them a man of Middle Eastern descent driving a heavily decaled white Beetle with out of state plates and no campus parking sticker had just placed a box next to the trash can. My car has New York plates, but he got the rest of it wrong. I have two stickers on my car. One is my highly visible faculty parking sticker and the other, which I just don’t have the heart to take off these days, says “Kerry/Edwards: For a Stronger America.”
Because of my recycling the bomb squad came, the state police came. Because of my recycling buildings were evacuated, classes were canceled, campus was closed. No. Not because of my recycling. Because of my dark body. No. Not because of my dark body. Because of his fear. Because of the way he saw me. Because of the culture of fear, mistrust, hatred, and suspicion that is carefully cultivated in the media, by the government, by people who claim to want to keep us safe. […]
One of my colleagues was in the gathering crowd, trying to figure out what had happened. She heard my description—a Middle Eastern man driving a white beetle with out of state plates—and knew immediately they were talking about me and realized that the box must have been manuscripts I was discarding. She approached them and told them I was a professor on the faculty there. Immediately the campus police officer said, “What country is he from?”
“What country is he from?!” she yelled, indignant. (link)
Now, I normally try and avoid the “rant” voice, but I must say, I’ve had just about enough of these incidents. Don’t the campus police at Shippensburg U. have a minimum criterion for “suspicious”? Was it necessary to call the state police and the bomb squad? A faculty member dropping off a box of papers by a recycling bin at a semi-rural university simply ought not to have to deal with this kind of nonsense. It’s just insane.
It must have been a harrowing experience, but fortunately it ended without further incident.
The University wrote a statement to Ali following this incident, but Kazim Ali isn’t at all satisfied with it, presumably because the university wouldn’t want to acknowledge that Ali’s race was a factor in an incident where his civil rights may have been violated:
The university’s bizarrely minimal statement lets everyone know that the “suspicious package” beside the trashcan ended up being, indeed, trash. It goes on to say, “We appreciate your cooperation during the incident and remind everyone that safety is a joint effort by all members of the campus community.”
What does that community mean to me, a person who has to walk by the ROTC offices every day on my way to my own office just down the hall—who was watched, noted, and reported, all in a days work? Today we gave in willingly and whole-heartedly to a culture of fear and blaming and profiling. It is deemed perfectly appropriate behavior to spy on one another and police one another and report on one another. Such behaviors exist most strongly in closed and undemocratic and fascist societies.
The university report does not mention the root cause of the alarm. That package became “suspicious” because of who was holding it, who put it down, who drove away. Me.
It was poetry, I kept insisting to the state policeman who was questioning me on the phone. It was poetry I was putting out to be recycled. (link)
“Fascism” is a strong word, but sometimes you need to go there. Perhaps the key difference is, at least here the police have to adhere to basic concepts of due process. In a truly fascist society, none of that would apply. (We could, of course, debate matters such as Guantanamo Bay, CIA secret detention facilities, the practice of “rendition,” and the currently blurry line between “interrogation techniques” and torture. Those practices by themselves certainly don’t make the U.S. a “fascist” society, but they do force us to consider the troubling gap between the rhetoric of democracy and its actual practice in the U.S. under the present administration.)
As a side note, the “—— while brown” meme seems to be one that has legs. Here are some other posts at SM that use the term:
Flying While Brown (Actually, quite a number of posts use this phrase.)
Shopkeeping while brown (Admittedly a more complicated incident — Operation Meth Merchant)
Camping While Brown (a post from Manish from before Sepia Mutiny; not sure what the title is about)
amardeep on April 22, 2007 09:53 PM in Issues · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Amardeep, strange that you happen to post this on Earth Day.
Sad that recycling is now being added to the "while brown" list.
That being said... Today is Earth Day and I want to encourage the mutineers to figure out what their ecological footprints are. Check out www.myfootprint.org to find out what your eco-footprint is.
Happy Earth Day & Don't let the man (however stupid he may be) get you down!
So wait, how did he know that the guy from the ROTC building called him in?
Happy f*cking Earth Day, Shippensburg University.
The "John Doe" movement has legs.
as long as conservatives continue to blame the victims of flight 93 for the crash, continue to second-guess people placed in situations so alien as to constitute a martian landscape (like a lone gunman on the loose) and continue to believe that existential danger trumps common sense and good judgement, we will continue to see cases like these.
At what point do sane people realize that this hypervigilancy that has been promoted since 9/11 is only giving them a false sense of safety, and only promotes to increase fear?
I'd love to see statistics on what percentage of money going to Homeland Security (or airline/campus security, in general) is wasted on false alarms like these (where of course race had nothing to do with it). Anybody know if this information is out there or how to find it?
Totally agree with Prof. Ali on the above. Right wing radio talk show hosts are a huge part of creation of this culture of fear. These merchants of fear make their living by keeping the people constantly on edge.
The idiot(s) who reported the poet recycling have zero common sense and need a little education. Why on earth would a "terrorist" recycle papers? Although I could be mistaken, I am pretty sure the average terrorist could care less about saving the earth.
Ugh!! I wish you had given a warning that that was that god-awful Michelle Malkin's blog (or I guess I should've paid attention to where the link was taking me;)
It's easier to blame the victim, I guess - gives you a sense that it won't happen to you if you just report that suspicious looking brown guy..
Doesn't sound much different from Debbie Schlussel's opinions about Arab Americans and Arab people in general. I guess Indians too are sometimes confused with Middle Easterners, and hence this treatment.
When fear predominates, the fluidity of existence becomes congealed. Language contracts, assumptions are facts. In public, we are all at risk to varying degrees. And thus become slaves to mass hysteria, to other people's / institution's definitions. I do not assume the ethereal theories of political equality will win battles against the sweat of animal fears. I do greatly sympathize with what happened. However, I am not surprised.
In terms of constructive actions, consciousness raising in all its forms is all you can do. In less diverse areas, the task will always be more difficult. Go spread the Bad News.
People would prefer self security over fluidity. No democracy is safe once hysteria sets in. Democracy in itself is a fiction dependent on our unconscious and perhaps conscious desires to trust believe and imagine. When the propaganda of fear metastasizes, this fiction is made more obvious. Institutions, leaders political and not, artists, etc are the ones who can motivate the most people, who are not capable of thinking beyond their contracted world, to continue to believe in the fiction of democracy and equality.
You are either for them or against me. Thank you GWB.
I am speechless at the ignorance that continues to pervade this land.
Don't say that, after all freedom is on the march!
As unpopular as this may sound, I think the people who call the authorities in such instances should be held accountable to some extent. They don't realize that these false accusations have serious ramifications with peoples' lives - they just think they are being "hyper-vigilant" with no strings attached.
gm, #7:
I don't understand why you feel the need to generalize about terrorists like this. You must be unfamiliar with the infamous Symbianese Composting Army.
Apropos of nothing but today's meetup, I wonder if Sunny Leone recycles?
And to gogol's point above: then we should fall as a nation, because if reality is this malleable and our most treasured precepts can be shaken so thoroughly (by the death of a few thousand people! Tragic though those deaths are, I wonder if any one of the thousands of people who died in 9/11 would be happy with how the 350 million or so "survivors" have given up our most cherished ideals and allowed fucking morons to trample the Constitution in their name), then we as a civilization no longer deserve any form of the "supremacy" we think we hold.
I'm not afraid of terrorists. There! I've said it. I'm SO NOT FUCKING AFRAID OF TERRORISTS. I'm not even slightly afraid of them. They could set off a goddamn bomb in my apartment, and if I survived, I still wouldn't be afraid of them. I'd be pissed that they blew up my HDTV and my goddamn XBox, but I wouldn't be afraid. I don't even understand what's to be afraid of. Death by explosion? Is that somehow more dead than death by heart attack or death by car hitting you in the parking lot, or death by aneurysm brought on by ranting on the Mutiny overmuch?
This is what makes this situation tricky. What kind of ramifications do you have in mind ?
Things would be so much easy for brown people in the United States, if it were not for those 19 losers on that one september day of 2001.
I just wish some people here, would blame them somewhat for what brown people face after that day in 2001.
Regarding ramifications, a simple solution is possible. The Dept of Homeland Security should maintain a public list of frequent complainants, then discount the warnings of those who keep crying wolf by some suitable manner. If the issue at hand is to remove the prejudice from the minds of paranoid freaks like the ROTC dude there, then, a warning like this from the DHS will check repeat offenders. After the first couple of times, you are just the douchebag who we won't listen to. I suppose, the fear itself, of losing credibility as a complainant should keep guys like the ROTC man there from thinking twice before making his accusations.
Clueless, not only have I blamed them, but I have gone so far as to distance myself from the criminal hatred that breeds terrorists like the ones in that September day in 2001. I have readily denounced their wanton cruelty and grieved with the victims and their families for their tragic loss. While I don't presume to know how others have reacted, I happen to think almost everyone here has acted similarly.
The issue is not that terrorism is not denounced sufficiently. In the post 9/11 world, it is so obvious to any rational being, that it doesn't bear repeating. The issue here is the culture of fear and paranoia, and the futility of racial profiling that stems from such irrational fear.
Yes, this certainly is tricky. Perhaps having very detailed and poignant questions asked by the authorities. For example, the numerous times I've called 911 when seeing an accident, etc., on the road, I think the operators have kept me on the phone for 30secs-1 min max. I would hope that someone calling in a suspicious package would hopefully be quizzed at considerably greater length. Perhaps even being forced to give their names (instead of remaining anonymous) or other identifying info and explicitly told by the operator that this is a serious issue and not to be mistaken by pranks, etc. - basically emphasizing the enormity of the situation. For example, several times either family members or friend have called the police to file a missing persons report or report a theft, etc. On each occasion, they weren't treated very seriously - the officers expressed doubts, etc. (I imagine this is to sift through the B.S. cases from valid ones).
If a similar tactic would be utilized presently, that would perhaps help. Knowing that making a phone call wasn't a fire and forget thing, but something that placed you in a registry, etc., would make people think twice. Also increased public awareness by the media, etc., about peoples' lives who have been ruined by such claims. I would be willing to bet that Mr. Ali's name will be placed on a list.
Just to be clear, I was never sympathetic in the first place. But after 9/11, I went to vigils to remember the victims and so on to publicly decry terrorism.
Spurious logic. If we frame it like that, then can't we also say that things would be a lot easier for Americans if the American government didn't piss off the Arab world by its blindsided support of Israel and choppy foreign policy in the Middle East? Because you can take it back way before 9/11, and the terrorists are pissed off about something.
And it's not as if harassment of brown people began with 9/11. Iran/Contra anyone? The first Gulf War? The Oklahoma bombings? You want to cut off all the hydra's heads, but where do you start?
While I am vehemently angry at the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center buildings, it's much more difficult to reason with a terrorist group than it is to expect officials on every level - including the university - to uphold due process. There was a proper way to deal with Kazim Ali's laughably suspicious activities; I'm sure the ROTC training manual has codified its best practices in how to deal with such situations. If they haven't, well here's a golden opportunity.
Your statement is basically normalizing the irrational fears that have entered the American psyche. It's almost like saying, "Well, it sucks that innocent brown people are being harassed, attacked and killed, but the fear is understandable." The day that anti-brown backlash becomes "understandable" because "they attacked us first" will be dark indeed. Oh wait, it's already happened.
This happened on April 19th, 3 days after the virgina tech shooting. Maybe the ROTC were being extra carefull.
What happened to Mr Ali is a minor inconvenience compared to what happened to the Asian victims of riots in Uganda. This blog's intimate friends like Msichana and Kali Billi have in no uncertain terms blamed the riot victims for their own lynchings and the bloggers seem to have accepted the ' root cause ' offered by the aforementioned commenters ( why else won't they condemn those comments and instead invite Msichana to the latest SM meetup? )
Given that almost every terrorist these days commits terror in the name of Islam and looks brown, there's much less deviant logic in accepting Mr Ali's inconvenience. Newsweek's recent censure of SM's tolerance of stupid but dangerous comments was right on. They were wrong only in accusing SM of the opposite ideology.
LOL. You guys at SM are just a bunch of muck-rakers who really really need to stop raising a ruckus about stuff. In the country of your birth (or your parents', or your grandparents') they hack and burn and rape people based on the color of their skin or (fore)skins, and it barely makes the news. You should thank your stars for this country.
Poor Prof Ali might be shaken by his experience (I would be too) but WTF...they didnt hit him or touch him or even abuse him (things which police in the country of your birth -or your parents' or your grandparents'- do as matter or routine based on mere suspicion)...and the college even said sorry. WTF do you expect them to do? Grovel on the floor and kiss his feet for trying to prevent a tragedy? Get a life, SM.
Expressing frustration does not need to be a zero-sum game. We can be irked/frustrated/outraged at both situations. There will always be a more horrific incident to one up another horrific incident. I haven't been following the Uganda thread, but you've piqued my interest. In the meantime, let's not belittle Kazam Ali's experience as an "inconvenience" simply because he happened to share the same skin tone and religion as most Islamic terrorists. You know, most people are capable of discerning how much outrage is appropriate according to various fucked up situations.
While Randhir continues to sip on the Kool Aid, here's the AP article on the Kazam Ali incident (no mention of Ali and the ROTC's tactics):
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/pennsylvania/ci_5713095
Paper box triggers a false alarm at Shippensburg University
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Article Last Updated: 04/20/2007 11:14:53 AM EDT
SHIPPENSBURG -- A state university canceled classes after a suspicious box was found outside an academic building, but an investigation confirmed it was no cause for alarm.
Shippensburg University announced the cancellation in e-mails to its 7,500 students and 800 employees Thursday after campus police were notified about the box around 3:45 p.m., school spokesman Peter Gigliotti said.
Police later determined the box contained used paper and had been placed next to a trash can outside the building by a university employee, Gigliotti said. Classes resumed today.
"It was an honest mistake," Gigliotti said.
The school's policy requires authorities to investigate any suspicious packages found on campus. Everyone's vigilance has been heightened following a shooting attack earlier this week at Virginia Tech, where a gunman killed 32 people and himself, Gigliotti said.
"We told (students and employees) that if something doesn't feel right, call university police," he said.
Talk about spurious! Iran/Contra had to do with "harrassment" of "brown" people? Oklahoma City was meant to target "brown" people? Much ado about nothing. The supreme irony, of course, is that our upstanding ROTC hero (assumed to be white, though that is often not the case) could end up in the Army working for a turbaned, bearded Colonel named Singh, serving under a general named Abu Zaid.
Do you not know how to read? My point was that innocent Americans who looked brown/Middle Eastern were often the targets of xenophobic backlash after those incidents occurred. Learn to read before posting such bullshit.
Seriously though, did I miss it in the actual writing? How did he know that the ROTC guy called him in?
I fail to grasp the supreme irony. I think it would be well served if the upstanding ROTC hero actually did work for a South Asian supervisor. It would drill some perspective into his head.
If the color of your foreskin is pushing the general populace towards rape and violence, you should either cover up more often or just stop being stubborn and have your thing checked out by a doctor.
Haha totally! Except for the fact that Colonel Singh is a periodontist and Gen. Abizaid retired last month. Unless your "upstanding ROTC hero" ends up in the Dental Activity Command, he is just going to have accept the supremely unironic privilege of serving under an exotic white guy.
It could go both ways.
I understand the inconvenience and embarrassment that Mr. Ali must have experienced, but hasn't anyone thought that maybe people taking action when they become suspicious could be a good thing? Look at all the warning signs that Seung-Hui was dangerous--stalking girls, no visitors the entire year, no friends, etc. and nobody really did anything. They did try to help him with some counseling, but even that didn't help in the end.
It just seems like when something actually happens, we wonder why nobody said or did anything preemptively, and then when somebody does take preemptive action, we accuse them of being racist/prejudiced/whatever. I know that the ROTC guy (or whoever called him in) had suspicions, but think about it. If you saw a white guy (or a black guy, or whatever) leave a box somewhere (next to a recycling bin seems like a good idea because it'd be the last place someone would be suspicious about) and drive off, would you really not think twice about it? I think I might have my suspicions about that. I mean, why not just dump the papers into the recycling bin?
Realistically, however, I'm sure the caller was encouraged to take inform higher authorities because of the professor's skin color. It's a simple and unfair reality of the state of security in the US today.
Flowerly decals, poets, VW Beetle's, all are understandably alarming and it's wise to be vigilant. But Mr. ROTC guy, what really tripped you up? Be honest.
Was it the VW flower on the dashboard that set-off your inner terror alert system? Don't mean to pry but did yours go up to Sparkling Salmon? It did? Like, oh my god, yesterday mine went to Sanguine Scarlet when I was at Blockbuster and I saw this DVD with this Arab guy on the cover until, like, I read it, and it was, like, Borat. LOL.
*encouraged to inform*
sorry typo
Oh, and Randhir,
Please tell me you're not subjecting the United States to the same standards that exist (or don't exist) in South Asia. Hopefully the US can be expected to live up to the very "bar" which it had previously raised.
Hahaha....DJDP, thanks for the 3am laugh...what could be better!
Mine is currently set to "Hindu Brown."
(Wait, are we talking about the terror alert system or colored foreskins? Come to think of it, "Hindu Brown" can be used to describe both.)
Sakshi - You're welcome. @=)
I've had the argument about whether or not "John Does" should be held accountable for reporting "suspicious" people and activities with friends before, and it's not an easy one. On the one hand you have the post 9/11 messages in American society about the need to be vigilant and report packages etc, and you can't blame people for feeling a tad paranoid; but I think people underestimate the real hurt and damage to reputations done to someone who is falsely "called out" as suspicious. People who repeatedly call in a "tip" based on little more than racial prejudice should be discounted by any law enforcement authorities, and authorities who pursue such tips should be held accountable too, like airline staff who give in to customer paranoia. Airlines don't have much time to react and are under pressure to take any suspicions very seriously to avoid tragedies, but surely they can be more judicious in deciding which complaints matter and which don't.
I feel like there's nothing anyone could have done! ridiculous...
Okay, after much deliberation I have created a color coded Terror Alert System and Foreskin Health Matrix that uses the same scale to denote the appopriate sense of urgency.
| Terror | Foreskin
Hindu Brown - | Low | Peaceful, but Oppressed by Abrahamic Brown
Wheatish - | Guarded | Warning: Matrimonial May Occur
Saffron* - | Elevated | *Only used to describe balls
Black as the
Last Banana - | High | Eligible for Quotas at IIT
Midnight in
a Coal Mine - | Severe | General Populace Begins Rape and Violence
First of all, ROTC is a great program, but the students in it are sometimes perfect assholes. (I remember doing a group project in college where we had a ROTC guy in our team, he did just about nothing but we couldn't get him to shut the fuck up about leadership and shit. When we presented our thing, we almost had to drag his uniformed ass offstage, and he still wouldn't shut up.) Problem is, ROTCs think they are the privileged (in a uber-human sort of way) gentlemen on campus, and their privates snap to attention at the slightest flutter ... they really do believe they can stand in for cops. The irony is that they haven't the faintest fucking clue.
Second, WOO-HOO to the faculty member who stood up for Mr. Ali.
Third, this fellow randhir who commented before is a fool.
WTF? I should thank my stars that I don't get hacked or burnt in this country because of my skin? Missing the point! The hacking and burning may happen elsewhere but it ISN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN HERE. That's the whole idea behind this country. Would you drink a bottle of Evian with a cockroach in it simply because you were drinking tap water before?
It's the even that makes it art. I guess you want the cockroach to bite your ass and cause your ears turn green before you take notice.
No! They did not. Read his webpage. The president denied (lame fool) it had anything to do with Ali's ethnicity. This is as stupid as it is untrue. The ROTC moron who squawked and the cops who flew down were all looking for someone of Middle Eastern descent.
Finally, here's some food for thought.
All these terror outfits claiming to protect Islam and the Muslim world ... they cause grevious damage not only to the dead (by their bombs) but even more so to the living Muslims who must eventually become and remain targets of profiling and harassment. This is the sad and practical consequence of perpetrating terror.
Terrorists must be perfect morons. They take out a hundred, but cause everlasting grief to the thousands of their brethren who are still alive.
I guess it's because they have special idiot-inducing cockroaches in their water.
No, in this respect they're not morons, because that's what they want. People who fly planes into buildings or blow themselves up on buses and tubes and incinerate innocent people are not bothered about the backlash against Muslim (much less Sikh or Hindu) people in the West --- on the contrary, it is factored into their acts as a bonus, as it will 'wake up' the 'ummah' to the 'struggle'. Their violence begets hate against innocents which will in turn (they hope) beget hatred back and perpetuate a cycle of hatred that is fertile soil for them. When an innocent ten year old Pakistani girl is spat on in Scotland or wherever, that is part of their gleeful payoff.
The fear terrorists try to create has little to do with bodily harm, but more to do with damaging free and open societies where we expect things like civil rights and acceptance.
I agree that what happened to the prof really sucked, but as much as I hate GWB, profiling, Gitmo, Michelle Malkin, et al. This incident, and others like them all happen because of what those a-hole terrorists did. I'm not naive, I understand that America and other western countries have long had "an invisible hand" in funding and arming many of the world's terrorists. So while they are not totally excused from culpability, the blame for this lies mostly with terrorists and the people that stay silent while this sort of extremism is permitted to fester.
Jordanians cheering the arrival Black September - Guilty. Palestinians cheering 9/11 - guilty. The Iranian shopkeeper who I thought was just way to happy on 9/11 - guilty. These people and many more like them are the people to blame for what happened to Kazim. The Pakistanis held a huge rally against the extremist Red Mosque. They should actually just burn it to the ground as it has already been ruled illegal and their members kidnap people for "indecency" and their mullahs issued fatwas for hugging. I am glad for the protests, but in this case, it is not enough.
Again Just what is the big effing deal.
I am not a muslim but i have been detained after 9-11.
It was a nuisance but not a big deal
This is just bitching over nothing.
How many times do people get pulled over after an amber alert when traveling with a child?
Sepia mutiny is turning into DeMacacarey lately.
Totally agree. He was definitely trying to prevent a tragedy, intentions were completely noble. It's like after the Oklahoma city bombing, I logged onto a white-male frequented board, you might have heard of it, called, "WhiteyMcWhite.com"? I suggested that all white males should be prevented from renting trucks. But this strange thing happened... people said things like
"Just because Tim McVeigh was white, doesn't mean all other white males are bad too" I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. The shear idiocy of it.
I marvel at the stupidity of the guy notifying the cops. What terrorist would try to blow up a recycling bin? Maybe one against environmentalism? Again, I laugh in his general direction.
The terrorists hate the freedom to recycle. They also are supporters of John Kerry. And only terrorists write poetry.
This is a really sad incident. To put it all in some general context, I am tempted to reproduce a quote about Pennsylvania from Jim Carville, who was Bill Clinton's campaign manager. He said "Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between". I don't think he meant that as a compliment to Alabama. Really, the hill-and-valley 'town and country' of Central Pennsylvania has a rather insular culture.
Frankly, one of the most curious things about the story to me was that Shippensburg University had hired someone named Kazim Ali in their literature program! And when I think about it, it's not really very curious at all that the literature department shared a building with the ROTC Program.
Most of central Pennsylvania is only a few hours drive from NJ, MD and NY (unlike the real Alabama) - yet it is a world away culturally and in terms of the degree of acceptance of the 'racial other'. In places like that, the post-Sept 11 story is just a tiny blip on the general racial attitude, which has never been very friendly or accepting. A 'racialized economic structure' never really took hold in those parts, and so, not surprizingly, there aren't very many non-whites there. The few that do exist are very visible, extremely strongly resented, and are objects of generalized xenophobic suspicion.
Sorry to hear about the 'recycling package while brown' scares...now, how about some golden showers with cow urine because your teacher didnt like your caste?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKSP32758320070421?feedType=RSS
Well, most desis wouldn't want to live in central PA for the exact cultural reasons you describe. And while I do agree with Amardeep's general assessment of this particular incident, I also feel that some of us have superhuman expectations of ordinary white people in this country...even if what Chachaji says above about central PA is true, can you entirely blame them? Is there any single ethnically/culturally homogenous zone on Earth that is at the same time completely welcoming and 'non-othering' of foreigners? I'd say that inspite of the above, they (and midwesterners, who share a similar culture) are among the more friendly ones out there in many ways.
I think this is a myth that is perpetuated to make brown people feel better about their security. You know, "I live in New York, it's a cosmopolitan city, it's not like Alabama/Mississippi/Virginia, so bad things won't happen to me here just because I'm brown". This could just as easily have happened in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. In fact, I remember reading about a Pakistani doctor in a Philadelphia suburb who was investigated after 9-11 for "suspicious activity". Incidents like these don't really have anything to do with a general attitude. All it takes is a few suspicious individuals, and those individuals could be anywhere--a rural town, an airport, driver along a major interstate.
I mean to say "incidents like this don't really have anything to do with a regional attitude". They probably are related to a general nationwide attitude of heightened suspicion.
Amitabh writes: >>they (and midwesterners, who share a similar culture) are among the more friendly ones out there
I love central Pennsylvania and the Mid-West! For $6/- they put enough food in front of you that could feed a small village in India. I mean, who eats that much?!!
M. Nam
I agree for the most part with mfunnierthanyou , who said that many crimes could have been stopped if people had been more vigilant... and we end up bashing all those people who *do* report suspicious activity. Had Cho been of middle-eastern descent, he would have been reported by now, I'm pretty sure.
When so many bomb alarms have been sounded in various universities following the virginia tech massacre, it is but inevitable that people tend to be 'extra careful' / 'extra suspicious' . If there is anyone to blame, it is the conservatives and the media who have brainwashed america to be hateful towards all Muslims and constantly label them the 'enemy'. I don't blame America for 'living on the edge' either ... these bomb threats/massacres happen almost everyday !
Terrorists across the world screaming 'death to america' aren't doing us any good at all either. As long as there are terrorists in the world of Middle-Eastern descent, we will be on the back foot in America ... And sadly 'Racial profiling' is here to stay, because let's face it guys: No white woman has terrorized america ... No caucasian has blown up anything here ... It's a sad reality, though it sucks BIG TIME for the brown man.
Of course things can happen anywhere, you can get stung by a bee any where. However, it is more likely if you live next to the hive.
Here and here.
I'm surprised that so many people are essentially assigning collective guilt to browns and Muslims by saying "this is all the fault of terrorists" - poets and folks like your parents are going about their everyday lives and certainly don't see themselves as in any way related to the 9/11 bombers.
The cops really overreacted with the questioning about what country the guy was from. They should have just asked him to open up the box and he could have taken out all the papers and waved them in their faces.
Sai said:
Well stated.
In the mid 90's the Milita movement in the middle of the United States was starting to make noize. Little groups were popping all over the country, with most in the midwest. Timothy Mcveigh has spend some time around a few of these people.
Yet after the Oklahoma city bombing, many people in these movement were shocked about what happened and left those groups, and the milita movemnet died down not long after the McVeigh bombing Oklahoma city.
Yet after 9/11 there has been, Madrid Spain, and London England. Plus don't forget those 17 men almost a year ago in Toronto who were planning a attack.
It's not about assigning guilt, it's about assessing root of the fears, rational or not of the greater population, and how that leads to stereotyping and profiling. That has to be attributed to 9/11, right or wrong, it is the reality. Blaming others does nothing to correct the root problem.
I thought this line was particularly poetic:
: For a moment today, without even knowing it, driving away from campus in my little beetle, exhausted after
: a day of teaching, listening to Justin Timberlake on the radio, I ceased to be a person when a man I had never met
: looked straight through me and saw the violence in his own heart.
Moral of the Story: Stop recycling.
Green Angel, glad you noticed that -- I thought Ali's account was very nicely written.
Perhaps I should have stressed that a bit more in my post...
Incidentally, he's had it published today at Inside Higher Ed.
Please. As Camille noted in another thread, that's a bit of an ahistorical view of things. It simply isn't as if all was hunky-dory before Sept. 11, and then that happened, and everything went wrong. Stuff happened before Sept. 11 too. Yet, the year 2001 was also relevant in other ways. Demographic trends among South Asians - whether from immigration, native-born cohorts achieving adulthood, or from the huge increase in pre-Y2K work visas - were leading to a higher level of visibility in the general population, and therefore, a greater degree of resentment vis-a-vis South Asians was building up. Outsourcing ("offshoring") which really came into its own in the post-Y2K recession, also added another dimension to the resentment, so it would be a mistake to ascribe everything to the post-Sept 11 mentality, real though that is.
the part that really bothers me is the lack of official acknowledgement that a blunder had taken place. and i used to think pofessors were respected types, you know like back in the old country.
Thanks for posting this.
While this entire incident does not surprise me, the funny thing is what outrages me the most is this:
"The university president appreciated my distress about the situation but denied that the call had anything to do with my race or ethnic background"
I think I could deal with racial profiling if the powers that be came right out and told us that this is what we as brown people should expect in light of the troubling times.
Its the hypocrisy and lies and double-speak that gets to me ....along with the ignorance
er... thats me @ #67 above ...Monday morning and I can't spell my own name
C'mon, you read this blog right? The worst ever school attack was by a politically motivated suicide bomber, a guy who was a white Catholic. He killed elementary school children, and then waited and set off more explosives to kill not only himself but the rescuers as well. Luckily, another 500 lbs of explosive didn't go off. This was an attack he planned for a year!
Exactly. The same thing happens at the airports when I'm the only one who is "randomly" selected for a baggage check before boarding. I don't mind being searched again, but I'd want them to tell me the truth instead of the usual "random selection" crap.
This statement is a microcosm for most of America. One one hand it's saying, "We're the land of the free, home of the brave, stand for freedom and equality of all people" and on the other hand it's, "What do you expect us to do? All the 9/11 hijackers were arab! At least we don't chop off your dicks for looking the wrong direction, like in your home country! So shutup and kiss the ground you're even here!"
It's constant pendulum, where one end its, "We're all together tra la la la" and the other end it's an extreme "Us vs them mentality, where we were here first, and we're trying to protect our own..."
Maybe I watch too much V for Vendetta and Children of Men, but I am beginning to feel really hopeless/overwhelmed by the status quo in the U.S.
Also, thanks chachaji :) I was going to bring up the same point - brown people have been targets of backlash for numerous events that they had nothing to do with. I think Sai (?) mentioned this earlier in the thread.
I, too, think that people should be held accountable for false reporting. There is a difference between this incident and Cho. In the latter case there was a body of evidence that the guy was disturbed. In this event only one thing happened - a brown man dropped off a box of recycling. These aren't the same kinds of incidents, and I think it's unuseful to compare. There really aren't any comparisons. Even law enforcement specialists can tell you that racial profiling is NOT an effective way of deterring crime. Observing "suspicious activity" is a better way of figuring stuff out, but if you think something is suspicious purely on the basis of someone's skin color, you should think a little harder!
Also, I think bringing up the "be thankful we even let you in this country" argument is a bunch of bullshit. I am sick of hearing that brown and black people should kiss the establishment's ass and be thankful they are even allowed to be here. This is ridiculous for about 1 million reasons. To pull out my privilege card, I am a U.S. citizen, and I am entitled to the full rights and benefits as EVERYONE ELSE in this country, including a blonde-haired blue-eyed Bible-loving kid from Nebraska. Anything less is unacceptable, and it is important and necessary that people say something to that effect. Just because I'm not being burned in an oven doesn't mean that I should accept and defer to my my supposedly acceptable and "lesser" status as a brown woman in the U.S.
I just thought that I would point out that according to my eco-footprint, if everyone in the world lived like me, we would need 6.6 planets. And if there were 6.6 of me, we would need 39.9 planets. And that would be cool.
For people pooping in their pants because of the random brown man terrorist out to get them, reading this might put things in some perspective.
Sorry, in the middle of my invective I forgot to post how I felt about this article. Firstly, Amardeep, thank you. I got this last night in my email and was really moved. I know many of us have heard these stories, but it was so well-written and human that I felt incredibly empathetic/sympathetic and emotionally moved by Dr. Ali. Sometimes when these things happen it's hard to remember the humanity and human face behind everything - this article doesn't let you forget, and I appreciate that.
#70, the sample space for the random selection isn't all of humanity, it's the set of all brownies. You'd have been a randomly-selected-brown-dude..
DJ Drrrty Poonjabi:
Where did you learn this falsehood that blacks are eligible for quotas in India?
This is an interesting discussion. I think it would have been really great if his friend, when responding to the question of what country he is from, had she responded that is is from England, what would have happened? Interesting, I think. I'm sorry for what happened to him, though.
Unfortunately those who engage in racial profiling and those who defend them in the name of "security" will never admit it. My father would routinely get pulled over by cops wanting to pick a fight with him (this was pre 9/11) just because he's a brown guy driving a white woman around in a car. Most of the time there wasn't even a justifiable offense to be pulled over for. My friend and admired classmate from my MFA program, a self described "humungous black guy" had made a very astute observation after 9/11 regarding air travel with his considerably lighter (also african american) wife: "It used to be that every time we were at the airport I would get searched, like, 5 times. I mean, I guess, huge black guy, right? Now I'm not sure how to react because they don't even look at me anymore and just pull _____ to the side!" (referring to how his wife is now often profiled as a "middle eastern looking person.")
As for Cho, much of the reason he was not detained for suspicious behavior and his basic threat to safety involves laws that protect the rights of the mentally ill. It used to be that you could be thrown into an institution and possibly never see the light of day again based on very spurious diagnosis. Women often were given lobotomies or hysterectomies for becoming too opinionated or emotional. Cho simply did not fill enough criteria under the current law to be held for treatment against his will. There was a poignant article on sfgate.com about the laws where a woman's psychotic son refused treatment and tried to kill her several times but was still not forced into treatment until she called the police and had him arrested. Then, he ended up in jail, treated for a few weeks, and was released again. It is sad that this happened all in a time when the country is spending so many resources on "homeland security" yet they will not look at the mental health laws and try to make them as fair as possible for both the mentally ill and the general public. A homeland cannot expect to be very secure when true threats are ignored and imagined threats are acted against swiftly.
Although students across the country have been asked to be vigilant, Cho did not drop off a suspicious box anywhere. He went on a gun rampage. Suspicious packages reporting is, from what I remember, usually urged when talking about terrorists both pre and post 9/11 (remember the Unabomber?) So this is what makes it clear to me that it was racial profiling rather than simple post-gun-rampage vigilance. I wish professor Ali hadn't had to deal with it.
What is really sad is the fact that the professor (at least from his account) was a familar sight to the security folks since he walked down the same hallway everyday to class. And how many Indian professors (or people) walked by that hallway that they could not use simple judgement to identify a regualr?
i empathize with kazim ali. i would be angry too.
but the white house has had several years and a press cowed into submissive stenography to come up with a coherent casus belli. even with the advantage of a shameless willingness to "recycle" a variety of well known lies; the support of the hate-radio industry; and roger ailes' FOX "news" whipping the faithful into an orgy of xenophobia, it has consistently failed.
frankly, i find mr. ali's apparent surprise at their success in spreading hysterical fear amongst the hoi polloi quite naive. it is not accidental...
@Ennis , #69
Come on, quoting an act of terrorism 80 years ago to prove that whites are equally as guilty ? The people who are alive in the world today ( and prone to profile people ) will have a memory of the last 10 years at best ... and quite frankly the last 10 years have been pathetic for the image of Middle eastern people.
No one is bothered about historical perspective ... No one is going to read history books to search for White terrorists/bombers ... in the last decade we have seen so many terrorist acts by Al-Qaeda .. in US, UK, Madrid, the train bombings in India (purportedly by islamist elements in Pakistan), the list goes on and on... all by brown middle-eastern men.
Racial profiling is a consequence of these events ... and racial profiling saves lives. Can you imagine what would have happened if the police went by 'equality' and spent half their time interrogating old white women? There would be countless more terrorist acts that would never be foiled!
Plz Note that I am in NO WAY justifying these senseless acts of vigilance by hyper civilians, and I am very sorry about what happened to our comrade at the University... I am merely attaching a logical reason to this state of affairs.
No, in fact, racial profiling has been shown to be very ineffective. Why? because the people bent on committing the crimes aren't idiots. They know what the profile is, so they actively seek people to skirt by that profile. Like for example, this guy.
Whats to stop Al Qaeda from aligning themselves with African muslims, people who'd be identifiable as "black" in the US, or with lifelong white supremists like David Duke to conduct attacks against Jewish populations or Black churches or what have you? Boom. Your super duper intelligent "go for the Turban" strategy is foiled.
And, all the "foiled" acts you can point to, occured for one of two reasons
1. They had reasons other than race to investigate those individuals.
2. Sheer dumb luck. (LAX millenium bombing, Richard Reid, etc..)
Your logical reason is anything but.
And don't act as if whites were committing such acts in large proportion, they'd be under equal scrutiny by the law, and even general American society.
Take a look at school shooters:
Out of 16 listed as "well known", 13 of them are white. According to you, this should be sufficient evidence to question, interrogate, search disproportionately and generally harass any and every white male in middle and high school that makes even a remote insinuation about violence, guns, or death.
Why is it when such statements are made, America is quick to brand it as "racist" yet when the opposite is made, it's "logical reason" and "good security"?
@HMF
No one can deny that Al-Qaeda recruits are predominantly middle-eastern. I don't buy your argument that a white/asian/hispanic person is as likely to be affiliated to the al-qaeda as a middle-eastern man. Taken to an extreme, its like saying that a black guy is as likely to be part of the KKK as a white guy, which is absurd.
The cost of having an innocent person feel bad (like how most of us feel at our extra security check at the airport) is not as great as the cost of the potential loss of life if a real terrorist gets by the security gate because the security guy is busy with the old chinese couple's belongings.
too bad he writes like a lonely fifteen year old. Never mind his recycling. He doesn't belong on campus because he's a jackass. Furthermore, he experienced no injury and in fact profitted by being able to jump on his corny high horse and burp out his little oppressed nonsense.
That's not what Im saying at all. the KKK's only purpose for existence is to harass, intimidate, and eventually rid the US of black people. Why would they recruit a black person to do that? (Unless he was this guy)
And I'm not saying Al Qaeda will make non-muslims people bonafide card carrying members. But this statement cannot be made any simpler: They are not idiots, they KNOW THE PROFILE.
That's why the many of the recent people who were caught as operatives in the US since 9/11, weren't arab, weren't turbaned, weren't bearded, and some were even pale enough to not be immediately classified "brown."
When did I ever say "as likely" I am saying however, it's not unreasonable for people with common goals to forge temporary alliances.
If you read Kazim Ali's original post, it seems that he was only questioned VIA telephone...no storm troopers invaded his home. He wasn't taken downtown or anything...yes, it seems a certain amount of commotion was caused on campus, but he wasn't even physically present (unless I'm reading it wrong). So on further reflection, I'm thinking maybe this whole thing has been blown out of proportion...by Ali himself. I don't think the police or campus guards really acted that egregiously. If anything, yes a case could be made that the ROTC guy was too hyper in sounding an (uncecessary) alarm.
Too many simplifications in this paragraph of yours.
The ratio is not 1:1. It's not that "one" innocent person "feels bad". There are hundreds and thousands of people who are subject to such profiling. "Feeling bad" is not the correct word to describe the trauma that they could undergo at times. Far more scarier is the scenario when law-enforcement starts misusing these tactics.
Heck, they may even link up with 14 year old school girls...
Not to thread-jack (sorry, Amardeep!) but any updates on the Sikh veteran who was reportedly assaulted in Chicago? Ennis, Ennis? You out there?
Amitabh, they did shut down campus and call the bomb squad. (That's also in the York Dispatch article) And he was questioned in front of a crowd of onlookers -- which I would construe as humiliating, especially if it's happening at your workplace.
He says only the state trooper interviewed him over the phone.
What an ignorant statement. What was Timothy McVeigh's race? He blew up a government building in Oklahoma not that long ago. Everyone remembers it. Except you. I bet you havent heard of the Unabomber either.
Most spree shooters, child pornographers and child molestors in America have been white men. Perhaps all schools, and neighborhoods with children, should racially profile white men? Why not?
Sheer ignorance. The Bali bombers were Indonesian malays. The foiled shoe bomber was a black jamaican-white british hybrid. The UK and subcontinental bombings were the work of south asian men. The bombings in Russia are the work of white Chechen muslims from the Caucasus Mountains. White, black and hispanic members of Al-Qaeda have been caught. You seem to be ignorant of the fact that Islam is a worldwide religion with large numbers of followers from every race on earth.
Whats utterly absurd is your analogy. Muslims are not a race and Islam is not a racist organization like the KKK. There are 10s of millions of muslims who are white caucasians, black africans, tan malays, yellow asians....and Al-Qaeda has representatives of these non-profiled races amongst it membership.
Profiling middle-eastern and south asian looking young men, and men with muslim names, can make the job of muslim terrorists more difficult. But not impossible. It makes more sense to selectively target and profile the small minority of muslims who are members of organizations that support terrorism or jihad; and their friends and relatives. And even muslims who frequent mosques whose preachers openly preach hate and violence should be red flagged. The West has to make a crucial existential decision: can it afford to be tolerant of religious intolerance and religious fanaticism. Its own bloody history shows how pernicious fanatical religious fundamentalism can be.
"It makes more sense to selectively target and profile the small minority of muslims who are members of organizations that support terrorism or jihad; and their friends and relatives. And even muslims who frequent mosques whose preachers openly preach hate and violence should be red flagged. "
Only two ways do this: (i) the police must be a big brother or (ii) the police must have a network of informers.
A different question is: Why should it be the police who monitor poor immigrant Muslims? Why not a team of psychologists? If the root cause of terrorism is alienation, the solution must be psychologists.
#46,
GGK ?? Are you the same GGK who used to post comments here more than a year back?? If so welcome back.
DJ dirty, good catch, but they are not the only "browns" in the military. I work with a Major Singh, and we had a Captain Pinto (originally from Goa) here when I arrived. Both are ROTC products. And the medical command now has a Major Patel. Dr. Singh may have been a periodontist, but he was the commander of the local dental command, which means he was the direct supervisor of all military dentists in Korea. Black, White, Brown, or otherwise. So he was the guy that either wrote, or "chopped" on, the fitness reports that got them promoted, sent to schools, or earmarked for release from the army.
Fascism is the merger of state with corporation.
America is a fascist country in that aspect, without exception.
Please, like I didn't know that. The point is the perceptions and the reactions that occur since 9-11, as a result of the actions of the terrorists. It's too bad more people can't just buck up and say that a lot of the problems we have to deal with is the result of a few assholes flying planes into a civilian building rather than take up their issues with the people they actually have the issue with.
Please don't lecture me on all the reasons that profiling and stereotyping are wrong, I know themm, and agree with them, but that doesn't change reality. Randomizer said it quite well, read it and understand that even though we may know better, its all still true - accept it and blame the people who perpetuate it - whether it be the 9/11 terrorists or any that came before or after.
Back up a minute, y'all. Some idiot calls the police, who investigate as they must. Honestly, are the police NOT going to investigate a report of a suspicious package? The police overreact a bit, cancelling classes and evacuating a few buildings, but the "suspect" isn't even detained...he explains the situation over the phone, during which time a police office says something stupid (maybe- there's some missing context in that officer's quote. My suspicion is that the officer interviewing Mr. Ali either expressed himself poorly and/or was misunderstood. I also suspect that the question "What country was he from?" was probably meant to establish the validity of the "tip" and not for any overtly racist reason.)
So the tipster is a racist idiot, maybe even the police officer is a paranoiac incipient SS trooper. But the key sentence in the post was "fortunately it ended without further incident, and Ali was released." You can't even really say he was "realeased," since it appeared he was never "held." The guy's civil rights were not violated, he does not appear to be facing any sanctions from the university, and his friends on the faculty stuck up for him.
This is not "fascism." It's a case of the typical assholery of everyday life, exacerbated by the fact that it was three days after the VTech massacre. Yeah, going through all that must have sucked, and I sympathize with the guy, but anyone claiming that this is an example of "fascism" just doesn't understand the meaning of the word. If there's any lesson to be learned here, it's that "the world is full of stupid people," the tipster being Exhibit A.
Speedy